The Empire Day and Remembrance Day celebrations are back! The tension heats up between the Alliance and the Empire again. Both factions are recruiting members to help post propaganda and tear down whatever propaganda the other side managed to post. Entertainers are recruited to boost the troops' morale, while Traders are hired to help keep supplies flowing to the front lines.

This year there are new badges and collections plus some new rewards including the AT-ST and AT-XT vehicles. Time to get busy! Mara Jade and Wedge Antilles have a new way to show their appreciation for their fans so make sure to visit them!

Player Placed Factional Base

The count of the number of bases reported in the War Terminal/War Intel Pad/War Table should now be accurate.

The cap of the number of bases allowed per planet should now be correctly/consistently enforced.

Bounty Hunter

The flawless Strike ability will now correctly increase the flawless bead chance by 15% for its duration.

Jedi

The Stance Glancing Blow modifier should now be correctly applied when the Jedi is in Jedi Stance.

Officer

Removed NO TRADE from Officer Tactical and Medical stims.

Storyteller

Some storyteller items may now be placed inside a player structure, others may also be placed on balcony-areas of player structures.

A re-deeded YT-2400 will now also be tradable. Existing redeeded YT-2400s will be No Trade Removable.

Fixed an issue where the paintings "Five Years of Galaxies" and "Six Years of Galaxies" were not tradable or No Trade Removable.

Veteran Reward

Changed the item description for the 81 month vet reward to indicate that the item will reset the lockout for a single instance every two days.

Corrected typo in description for the Flight of the Veteran.

Misc

Corrected malfunctioning Multi-painting: Forces Under Siege.

BBP CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: BBP has located and corrected a typo in genetic classification: many Vir Vir are now correctly classified as Vir Vur. Recent genetic alterations appear to have improved the temperament of Whisper Birds and Reptillian Fliers. They may now be successfully trained as Mounts. :END NOTICE

The AT-XT and AT-ST are now both two-seaters. They also run a little faster.

Extra info:
We will be giving a gift for each year so the 1st gift for the 1st year of SWG will start tomorrow. You have 6 more gifts to look forward to plus a final gift for the entire collection. I cannot find it right now but heard that these items will also be available as loot would one miss a hand-out window.

Trap Extension now offers 10/20% trap action cost reduction. The box now also affects the range of dire traps.

Cruelty now offers up to 6 seconds cooldown reduction to cripple.

Innate Assault renamed to Enduring Assault. Enduring Assault gives a 40% chance of applying a 10% action cost reduction to assault. It can be stacked up to 5 times.

The link between Antagonize and Fumble has been removed.

The Absorption and Deflection boxes now offer innate armor instead of kinetic or energy protection.

Man hunter is now a 3 point box. Man Hunter now offer 2% strikethrough chance and 10% Improved Detects Camouflage per point.

The Arakyd Probe Droid will now warn the Bounty Hunter if the target has been inactive for 15 minutes or more.

The Arakyd Probe Droid will also warn the Bounty Hunter if the target is inside a structure that the Bounty Hunter is unable to enter, for example a house set to private or if the Bounty Hunter has been banned from entry.

When a player bounty is collected, mail will be sent to those who placed a bounty on the mark. This change is not retroactive - only bounties placed after this change will receive the mail notification.

Flawless Jewelry Set

All three levels of flawless bead now have a 100% defense bypassing effect.

Flawless bead will now only be consumed by Ambush, Antagonize, Assault, Cripple, Dread Strike, Fumble, Intimidate and Sniper Shot.

Flawless bead attacks should no longer have a chance to be incorrectly dodged.

Decreased the Flawless Strike cooldown by 5 seconds.

The Flawless Strike jewelry set now adds an innate 2% flawless bonus.

Flawless Strike no longer uses a proc based system. When the Flawless Strike ability is used, the Flawless Bead buff is applied to the BH.

GCW

Messages to the GCW channel are now always timestamped, even if the "Timestamp Incoming Messages" Chat Option is not enabled.

Player Placed Factional Base

All player placed factional bases are now displayed under a new Player Placed Factional Base node/category on the Planetary Map that's visible to everyone. Remember, for PvP bases, the Active (sun) / Inactive (moon) icon before the base name indicates whether or not the PvP base is currently in its vulnerability state (Active/sun) or not (Inactive/moon).

The cap of the number of bases per planet will be proportionately divided between the 2 factions based on the GCW percentage score for the planet. The War Terminal/War Intel Pad/War Table GCW Report window displays the per faction cap as well as the planetary cap.

You can only place a base in a contested region if your side is winning the contested region by at least 51%. The Uncontested Region is excluded from this particular restriction.

A message will be sent to the GCW channel whenever a PvP player placed factional base changes its vulnerability status.

All GCW score contributions (including Factional Presence) made by the character occurring within range of a same-faction base will receive a bonus per base. The War Terminal/War Intel Pad/War Table GCW Personal Contribution window displays the bonus that you would receive at your current location. The bonus and range for each base type are as follows.

Forward Outpost - 1%, 750m

SF Forward Outpost - 2%, 750m

Field Hospital - 3%, 1000m

SF Field Hospital - 5%, 1000m

Tactical Center - 6%, 1250m

SF Tactical Center - 8%, 1250m

Detachment Headquarters - 10%, 1500m

SF Detachment Headquarters - 12%, 1500m

Cloning Sickness Perks And Restrictions

Once a faction controls at least 70% of a planet, the following cloning sickness perks and restrictions will apply to GCW officers.

For GCW officers of the winning faction, cloning sickness duration and removal cost will be reduced by 50%. Each additional 1% control above 70% will provide an additional 1% reduction in cloning sickness duration and removal cost, for a maximum of 80% reduction in cloning sickness duration and removal cost for 100% control of a planet.

For GCW officers of the losing faction, there will be a wait before the cloning sickness can be removed by the droid in the cloning facility, or pay a 50,000 credits surcharge to skip the wait. The wait is 60s, plus an additional 2s for each additional 1% control above 70%, for a maximum wait of 120s for 100% control of a planet.

The amount of ground FP you gain will scale relative to the number of other "FP eligible" characters of either faction within 500m of you. Maximum ground FP is earned when there are at least 7 other "FP eligible" characters of either faction within 500m of you.

GCW City Invasions

You now have to return to the Factional Commander to complete the Eliminate Imperials and Eliminate Rebels quests.

Empire Day

Fixed an issue that would gate people from the recruitment and vandalism events if they went neutral after starting one of the quests.

As part of our ongoing effort to encourage players to actively play the game, there have been several changes made in this update. We will continue to look for ways to encourage active play over AFKing.

Due to the continuing tension between the Alliance and the Empire, the Empire Day and Remember Day events will remain active until Tuesday, August 3, 2010. Both sides will continue their recruiting efforts to help post propaganda and tear down whatever propaganda the other side managed to post. --- emphasized by me

A very important RE item is available during this holiday! Imperials should go to the statue of the Emperor in Theed, Rebels to Yoda's statue in North Coronet. (If you are a true neutral just choose one and go anyway, no biggy.) Radial on the base of the statue and accept your gifts.